


luck had nothing to do with it

by utrinque_paratus



Series: have a little faith in me [1]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: (but nothing major), Additional Scene, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Book 1: Rivers of London, Canon Compliant, Dissociation, Friendship, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Near Death Experiences, POV Thomas Nightingale, PTSD, very vague spoilers for later books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utrinque_paratus/pseuds/utrinque_paratus
Summary: Blood had begun to soak Bow Street beneath him, and breathing grew harder with every intake of air he attempted. He knew that he should move – instinct screamed at him that he had to find cover; that whoever had just managed to strike him would surely try to finish the job they had begun.Not now. Not now. After all this time, not now, with a new beginning to grasp, a new lease on life in sight.Or: How Nightingale survived being shot, from his perspective.
Relationships: Peter Grant & Thomas Nightingale, Thomas Nightingale & Abdul Haqq Walid
Series: have a little faith in me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164338
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	luck had nothing to do with it

Blood had begun to soak Bow Street beneath him, and breathing grew harder with every intake of air he attempted. He knew that he should move – instinct screamed at him that he had to find cover; that whoever had just managed to strike him would surely try to finish the job they had begun. 

It could not happen. 

He mustn’t leave Molly, after all. He had vowed to be there for her, if for no-one else. 

And Peter was barely at the beginnings of his apprenticeship and had so much to learn still, so much he yet had to tell him, and there was too much responsibility for a single person to bear. He didn’t even _know_ about the Black Library heretofore, and its weight was not something he intended Peter to be left with to carry on his own – ever. 

Blood had not just pooled on the stone, but on his tongue also. It tasted of iron and desperation and terrifying reminders. 

Not now. Not now. After all this time, _not now,_ with a new beginning to grasp, a new lease on life in sight. 

Peter. 

He had to protect him, and for that, he had to get back up on his knees or roll onto his back. If he could not move at all, then so be it. He merely had to form a shield around them. Alternatively, grasp for an _Impello_ , or just a simple fireball to eliminate the attacker. There had been far more dire circumstances during his life where he had forced himself to perform while delirious with pain from critical injury and under the pressure of immense stress, and with whatever tools that had been available at his fingertips.

But he couldn’t. 

To speak in truth, he indeed was not convinced if he had formed a single coherent thought after the bullet had pierced his back. 

At first, there had been nothing – as if his nerves had instantly shut down. Realisation manifested itself only after he had sunk to his knees. And then, all gave way to agony soaring through every fibre of his body. Enough of it to suffocate any spark of magic that tried to reach his inner core to fulfil what his mind screamed through a haze of dullness and black water attempting to drown him within wave after wave crashing over his consciousness. 

_Protect Peter._

His face hit the ground. 

_Peter._

A flash of _vestigia_ was the only thing which kept him awake. A couple of months spent with learning the forms would never be enough to develop a _signare_ , but there already were significant cobwebs of what he immediately associated with his apprentice’s magic brushing across the surface of what threatened to drown him. 

Burnt hair. Spices. A flicker of jazz. Cocoa butter. 

_Peter._

His mouth tried to form vocals – call out for the lad. Everything that happened was a cough wrangling itself up his throat. The blood on his tongue bubbled over his lips. A red-hot iron rod stabbed through his chest, and tar filled his lungs. 

He would have screamed if he had the air to do so. 

This time, it was not Peter’s magic, but the touch of gentle hands and his voice which ripped him back from the brink. 

_“Keep breathing. It’s a habit you don’t want to break.”_

It had been a sound and simple order, and it would have been more than disappointing to not give his best to do it justice. 

Thus, he kept breathing. 

Most would say that it had been nothing more but favourable technicalities mixed with tremendous amounts of luck which had preserved his life during that particular night. 

Luck that had the bullet be held back by muscle tissue before it could exit his chest. Luck that it had not splintered bone, and had been easy to extract in the initial surgery; had not needed to be left inside his body. Luck that it had not cut through his spine, through vital arteries and veins, and luck that it had not struck his heart. Luck that they had a team of highly-trained paramedics on hand who were immediately there to treat him, and a thousand other factors.

Factors he never had the mind to contemplate, as while they might be true to fact, he also knew that they could not be more wrong. 

From his experience, neither luck; nor, oftentimes, rational technicality did play the deciding hand in the grander scheme of life and death. Neither did they have control over whatever fate intended for whenever they – the pawns – were left to their own devices in this endless game of chess. More than once, he had to learn the painful lesson that whatever he attempted to do, hopes were in vain if you did not act on them; and rules provided a veil of safety for those arrogant enough to delude themselves in their comfort; and technicalities were for fools who tried to find justification for whatever appeared to be reasonable in their minds and waited for a mayhaps streak of chance to aid them in their – seemingly – righteous plans. 

To whatever end. 

This was what his life had taught him. What the war had ingrained. What the shards of destroyed love and broken bonds had left cutting across his soul. What bitterness tainted with the growing possibility of a potentially endless life had wrought. 

Thomas Nightingale knew that luck had nothing to do with it. 

What had saved his life had been Peter's bravery and quick thinking, and the thread his apprentice had entrusted into his hands; the reminder to his willpower that his purpose was not done. And who had taken over the thread that had him hanging on. 

* * *

Flashes of harsh light pierced his eyelids and forced his consciousness to spike back up for a fraction of a second. 

Flares? 

Shivering engulfed him as the burning heat scorching his chest was replaced with ice. Flares indicated an imminent attack. He had to warn the men. Getting into position and taking cover was of vital importance. His heartbeat sped up, went faster and faster against his ribs with the frantic need to have his paralysed body rise to the action. 

He had to protect them.

The thought alone sufficed to regain movement over his limbs. He drew up his legs, tried to roll on his knees while grasping for his rifle. But it wasn’t there. His staff was missing, too. 

Suddenly, someone held him down. 

Immediate panic began to race through his veins. Had he gotten caught? He gasped for air. There was none. Was somebody strangling him? He started to trash against the restrictive force, remaining shrouded inside a fraught construct of blurred contours and flickering fireworks of black and white. 

Thomas smelt pine and woodsmoke, and the fabric being cut away from his skin was not a shirt, but linen battle uniform soaked wet by water and mud.

“Thomas,” echoed a voice from far, far away. “Thomas, calm down. It’s alright. You need to calm down.”

The cold. The cold was everywhere; just like the blood clotting inside his mouth; just like the hands keeping him firmly on his left side.

He had no strength left to free himself from their grasp. All receded to mere instinct boiling over, led to the _formae_ coiling around his flesh, his bones, his soul, the sole constant companion – tightening, ready to be released, as always doing as he asked to whenever he called out – and _yet_ , slipping through the trembling tips of his fingers as he wrestled to achieve the proper grip, do the final twist and turn of the key in the lock. 

“No!” 

The yell was instantaneous. Someone reacting to him reaching out to the magic for help. An enemy practitioner? 

Fingers slick with blood and sweat. Unable to release the destruction and the flames, do the one thing the war had demanded of him. Endless tremors of cold and helplessness embraced him, constricted the noose around his throat that was cutting away the air. 

The only thing that emitted warmth was the hand closing around his left.

“We are not the enemy. We are _not_ here to hurt you. There is no need to defend yourself. You are wounded, and we are medics, and here to _help_ you.” 

The voice was slow and clear and kind and held a compelling promise that snug itself around his trepidation – tried to guide it away. But he resisted the temptation. It could very well all be a rouse – he had to remain tenacious, and he tried to rip his hand away. He knew the enemy’s tactics well. Next, they would be a needle in his neck administering drugs. Then, electroshocks. Then… 

… pain. Coming in pulses. Thomas gasped for air. None. The pain turned into a wave, made everything foam over once more, pushed him into the dark. 

The _formae_ evaporated to dust. Something pierced into his right arm. 

“No,” he whimpered – “No” – or possibly, there were no sounds at all passing through his chattering teeth into that vacuum of nothingness. He attempted to jerk what he supposed to be his right arm away, away from the needle, and again, could not tell if he even managed to move it an inch, or flung it through the air, and expected more force to be used on him – more hands securing him back in place. 

But there weren’t. 

A blank patch passed, and when some sense impressions jumbled back into his body – just like the tumbling building blocks of a child skipped across the floor when one had tapped the tower beyond the point of stability – his head rolled back onto something soft, and only the voice from before resurfaced. 

“Thomas, you were shot in yer chest. I know you are in pain, and you are cold because you are in shock. But you are going to be alright. We are on our way to hospital. Just concentrate on your breathing. There is no need to defend yourself. Ye are safe, lad. You are safe.”

Through a layer of numbness and pins pricking his skin, a warm palm enclosed his right hand; took it, and a thumb ghosted across the lines and scars etched into it over the course of a century. 

A day, a week, a month? 

How long has it been?

The thumb moved back and forth, rhythmically, a gesture filled with gentleness without measure, a gesture amplified into something he could hold onto, cling onto. 

A gesture he could, perhaps, trust?

He weakly groped at his neck with his left. His dog tag was missing. How were they going to identify him properly, then? His company? His blood group?

The familiar voice spoke again. His accent was a deeply ingrained Scottish. Thomas could not remember a Scot joining their regular medics, but somehow, it did not concern him unduly. Perhaps because he was aware that no native German would be able to fake such authentic regional speech. 

“Age forty-two, nil negative, no known allergies and no medical aversions to anaesthesia and intubation. He’s suffering severe forms of PTSD, was critically wounded and shot in action before. Exercise _extreme_ caution with sedation, use of needles, _any_ kind of restraining. Speak with him, ease him into all procedures.”

Only later, when the memories resurged in clearer fragments, did he register what Abdul had actually said – repeatedly, to whoever had to hear. At the moment itself, it was rather the realisation that the voice was calm which had manifested inside him. Decisive. Someone who knew what had to be done and who took the lead. 

Agitation trickled away to make place for surrender. 

All of a sudden, his eyelids seemed leaden. He let them droop. 

Tired. He was so tired. 

“Stay with me, Thomas. Ye need to breathe, ye hear me?”

Ah, yes. He remembered. A habit you don’t want to break, one of the lads must have said. Wise words. 

Thomas drew in some air. The effort left him dizzier than before, and a new wave of agony hammered down onto his head. It might have been a groan, or several, that had brought the fresh blood to the corner of his mouth. 

“You’re doing great. Keep doing that, keep breathing. We’re going to poke yer left arm with a needle now. It’s just a tiny stab. You’ll quickly feel better after that, I promise ye. Is that alright? Just continue to breathe, and listen to my voice.” There was a short pause. “There, that was that. Can ye give me a squeeze?”

Thomas tried with all his heart, attempted to take another breath. Another, and another. Keep breathing. Just as he did before. He knew precisely how all of this would go down. Step after step, putting one foot in front of the other, again and again, as he wasted away on the long walk home. 

He could not remember if he ever managed to exert pressure with his hand or give any signal at all. 

The echo of the guiding voice lost itself in between the roaring rush of the Mosel waters churned into a flood by all of the Kyll’s torn-apart rage before the hollow trees of Germany’s winter forests swallowed everything up whole. 

* * *

The pain was gone. So was the cold. And Thomas, in some detached sense, was distinctly aware that he was dying. 

A curtain of heavy black satin slowly descended onto him as he floated away. Rays of white sunlight filtered through the structure of the fabric, on a far-away horizon. 

He stretched out his arm. Put out his hand to reach for the piece of cloth, as if he could draw it towards him and bundle it around his weightless body in full. 

It pledged peace. Finally. No more sleepless nights, no more screaming terrors and self-isolation. No more facades to uphold while the tears fell inside his mind, hidden away, to soak into dark folds and crevices filled with the voracious unspeakable. 

An ending to all the grief, and remembrance of loss.

An empty room where a family of blood and bond had once nourished his heart with love.

A wall of wood, filled with names of the dead; his hands, filled with splinters, sore and bleeding; the boys’ laughter echoing through empty halls, now suffocated as their mouths filled up with dust wherever their remains became one with the earth. 

Iron cabinets. A damnable curse. Imbued with the absolute perversion of life, but mixed up with the very last documents and remains of those that had suffered the most. Sealed behind a door locked with his magic; a door only he could open. Something only he could, should be left with to protect. 

His duty. 

No more begging. No more shame. 

The black satin sank further, the white rays withdrew. What sang to him were not the _formae_ , not the magic – not any more. _No more burden,_ the darkness called to him. _Rest awaits you._

It was merely when, by some inscrutable whim of the mind, he realised that with dying, the frantic need to breathe had drained away also.

 _Keep breathing,_ murmured a sudden voice. Bright brown eyes, quick and intelligent, lightened up by the most promising werelight he had ever looked upon. _It’s a habit you don’t want to break._

His duty. 

All of a sudden, the residual streaks of white filtering through that unidentifiable distance morphed to moonlight, and dipped the atrium of the Folly into a pearlescent sheen; as Molly danced, and turned, and whirled, and drew a red thread behind her, twirling and melting in and out of the shadows. 

A future, her eyes had said, as Peter had completed that step across the threshold. 

‘Come on, Nightingale. You are not done,’ whispered someone. 

‘This is not your turn, I know that with all my heart,’ murmured someone. Someone else? ‘Your time has not yet come.’

‘You need to believe that,’ susurrated another aspect of that echo. ‘No, you need to believe in _yourself._ Promise me that. Promise that you never stop living. Promise that you will never stop to behold the beauty in the world. It will be worth it. It’s always worth it. There is always hope. There is always a future.’

Reality or imagination?

‘Give me your hand. _Get up_.’

There had been so many instances where he thought that he simply could take no more. Where he had wished that death would finally be granted to him even after his life had been rejuvenated for all those unfathomable reasons. The present had turned tiresome; the process of standing up itself had been impossible for ages and ages. 

It still was. 

But that was what it was all about, no? Going on despite, when there was work to be done, and the future to protect. 

A future that had morphed to be viable in no more than a mere trice. A future for which he had to take responsibility. He would not just believe in a future for the sake of others’ wants and beliefs. He would because he had seen it himself. 

A future: A young man freezing off his toes as he stood next to the Actor’s Church at night while on the hunt for the possibility of a ghost. On the hunt for a thread that would lead to justice and the truth. 

In the end, it hadn’t even been as much as a decision. 

Thomas Nightingale withdrew his hand extended towards the veil of black. 

Instead, he took the one that had ordered him to get up in a vice-like grip. 

From far away, the pain and the cold crept back inside him as he took a breath, and another, and another, and his heart resumed to smash into his ribs with ferocity, and there were the coiling and twisting of the magic, welcoming him back into its open arms. 

His eyelids slid open. The blurred nighttime lights of a hospital corridor passed by as he was pushed through on a trolley, and then through a wing of broad doors. People ran next to him. Someone was holding something above his face, connected to a tube disappearing through his mouth and down his throat, and there were faint and distorted sounds, beeps, mixing with the ever-present voices calling out for his name, here, there, close and distant. Flickers and mist and stars. Single melodies so intimate that he knew them like the back of his hand; together, an indistinguishable choir of ghosts and whispers and orders and screams. Get up, Nightingale. _Get up._ Thomas, you _need_ to _get up_. 

He could not get up this time. But he could continue to breathe and will his heart to keep beating.

Sometimes, he had learnt, this was all the getting up that one could do. Sometimes, merely obliging yourself to keep living had to be enough.

A ghost walking next to him smiled down onto him and squeezed his hand. 

* * *

The next time he awoke, the cylinder leading into his airways had been removed. Instead, a nasal cannula was fastened across his cheeks, several tubes and cables appeared to be connected to his body, and it was not a ghost, but Abdul who held his hand once more. 

“You are one lucky bastard,” he said – one of the small sentences Thomas had succeeded to correctly recall; out of all which Abdul had spoken to him about – all the comforting phrases, the meanderings, the stories. They became endless strings knotting together to somehow provide a net of safety as Thomas crawled back to face the confusing reality of agony-riddled consciousness. 

Abdul’s presence grounded him. Prevented him from immediately succumbing to ever-present stranglehold attempting to drag him back down, through the blanket of that intense smell of woodsmoke and pine needles, and all that it entailed. 

It seemed to stretch out for a whole separate eternity: The process of the ceiling shifting from army canvas to flakes peeling off bricks of stone, and to clean plastic dipped in the pale hue of dimmed ceiling light. Of mind-racking pangs to a deep ache fogged by a haze of morphine; relocating from countless long-healed wounds to conglomerate inside his upper body. 

From the knifing cold and the leftovers of frenzied fear to that slight warm glow, and the all-engrossing exhaustion which solely emerged once one becomes aware that the desperate fight for survival has passed. 

For all he knew, it could have been seconds or hours later as he managed to say a thing. However, Abdul was still there. 

“Pe-...ter,” he whispered. 

“He’s fine. Peter fended off the attacker, he doesn’t carry a single scratch. Believe me, Thomas, the lad is all right,” reassured Abdul. Later, Thomas surmised that he must have told him a couple of times before, but this was the first instance in which the message actually registered in his brain.

The relief flooding through his veins was enough to make the world turn. And simultaneously, all blurred together to one as a churning mass formed in his chest, robbing him of what little air he possessed.

Thomas had to speak to him – no, he had to _see_ him. Peter surely was in deep trouble. They – no, he _himself_ had failed. Nobody was safe. The Folly. The Library. The whole operation. Punch. _Molly._

A distant beeping noise became a hectic staccato. 

Gasping for air. Shuffling of persons around his bed. His awareness shifted in waves: In and out. 

“In and out, Thomas,” said Abdul, far removed. “Breathe, slowly. In, and out.”

Another eternity later, the near-silent soundscape hat returned, and Abdul was still holding his hand. A thumb brushed across the inside of his right wrist in a regular pattern, and he fixated on just that until he deemed himself to be sufficiently equipped with what drops of strength he had achieved to gather in order to blink himself back to focus.

As he fought to lift his eyelids higher, Abdul leant forward in the chair. Thomas wanted to shift his head to face him in a proper manner, but the mere attempt to command his body to move was met with the sensation of what must be a hammer going down against his temples. He gave an involuntary groan. 

Abdul asked him if he was in pain. 

He may have negated – at least he assayed to. Nonetheless, Abdul stood up from the chair and bent slightly to do something out of his field of view before carefully sitting back down on the edge of the mattress. At no point did he let go of his hand. 

“Don’t try to keep yourself awake,” said Abdul. His tones were muted, and kind. “You have to rest. You were shot through your lung. All else can wait.”

As so often, his dear friend was right. He could not do a damn thing. 

But his subconsciousness decided that there was a small detail on which he had to correct him before allowing himself to fall back into oblivion.

“Not… lucky… ba-...stard,” he whispered.

The hand around his tightened its clasp in a way that conveyed worry and sorrow, eerily contrasting a thin smile moulded of crinkled surprise and a chuckle of mock outrage. 

“I'm only too happy to discuss this in detail once you’ve stopped looking like one of my corpses,” said Abdul. “But I will hardly revoke my assessment, except to perhaps add that you may very well be the most tenacious and hardest-to-kill patient ever recorded in the history of this hospital.”

Under different conditions, he might have laughed. If only to stave off the cruel accuracy of it all. 

Instead, he croaked:

“Bast-...ard… yes. Luck… no.”

A long moment of silence followed; one in which Abdul seemed temporarily lost, and then appeared to be conflicted with the decision of whether to voice the thoughts passing his mind or to hold back. Much later, Thomas knew that this was because of how close the struggle for his life had been. 

It was also a moment in which Thomas collected whatever air there was to go on. Moving his lips was hard, and his tongue appeared as if made of felted plumb. 

“You. Pe-...ter. Not… luck.”

Thomas never ascertained Abdul’s reaction, or, for that matter, ever obtained assurance whether Abdul had even understood the meaning of what he had attempted to convey. He had barely finished the word as he lost the fight against the immense fatigue trying to black him back out, and was in turn greeted by impressions associated with burning wood and pine needles coated in frost. 

When the actual dreams would come – and as much was certain – they would not be gentle. 

But there was still the hand. And the accompanying notes of ground pepper, rendering the warp of pine and woodsmoke to something more bearable, and the roughness of wet canvas which now did not just carry the heaviness of the past, but the future also. 

Sunshine would eventually break through even a canopy of the darkest needle forest. 

**Author's Note:**

> Keep on fighting. It's always worth it, and you are worth it too.  
> It's a new year and a new lease on life.  
> Hugs and love.
> 
> Edit February 2021:  
> I originally posted this work anonymously due to reasons mainly to do with mental health and self-confidence, but claimed it as mine about 6 weeks after posting. Hey guys - I am finally feeling better again! :)


End file.
